


The Tower

by HawkeYouLikeAHurricane



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Handerslympics, M/M, Not liable to cheer you up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 15:30:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11061885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawkeYouLikeAHurricane/pseuds/HawkeYouLikeAHurricane
Summary: Set immediately after the close of action in Dragon Age 2.  It's hard to realize what you don't know about the people closest to you, harder to accept that you can't keep them safe.Handerlympics entry for the Tarot card The Tower.  Key word: Catastrophe.  Upright position: unexpected changes, karmic actions, release of old habits, ambitions being revealed.





	The Tower

Anders is a consummate liar.

It shouldn't come as such a surprise. Every free mage has to be, and Hawke’s no exception. His nearest and dearest make their livings off of fast talking backed by faster blades. (Well, mostly, but Fenris is the exception that proves the rule.) Point is, it shouldn’t feel like a revelation - Anders is using his healer voice, steady and calm and no-nonsense-you’ll-be-all-right. Confidence is the key to any really good lie. The Circle survivors are eating it up. They want to believe. That’s the other key, of course. It’s so much easier to deceive people who want to be deceived.

It’s hard, somehow, to watch. All those wide, panicked eyes, desperate to believe that they’ve been given more than the ghost of a chance. That escape is just another spell - perform the right steps and get the right result. Split up in threes and fours, slip into the clothes Anders had stashed all over the place out here, slip staves into makeshift sheathes that might pass for swords… He’s even got little scraps of parchment hidden somewhere in that monstrous coat, tiny sketches of edible plants to pass out.

These supplies, these plans - just another part of Anders’ life hidden from Hawke. And the way they’re looking at him - awe, from some of them, near-terror from others. The smartest ones have blank, dead eyes. They know. They’ll never blend in, too long used to the routines and learned helplessness of the Circle. Maybe they’ll blend in with the rest of the unlucky folks forced to flee this most recent disaster, but that cover won’t last.

It’s not like him to feel this… hopeless. He’s just tired, is all. Tired. Nevermind the panic he can feel rising in his gut when he thinks of Aveline and her battle-tired guardsmen back there in the middle of a near-riot, Fenris and Isabela holed up god-knows-where “until the coast is clear,” as though it ever could be.

This isn't helping. He’s itching with the need to do something, _anything,_ but he’s shit at speeches and there’s nobody here for him to kill. He’s walking before he knows it, tired legs and a steep climb to nowhere in particular.

He’d have been better off where he started - Varric’s watching the smoke in the sky, pale and silent as Hawke’s ever seen him. Maybe he’s just distracted by the smoking crater in his home city, maybe he can’t stand the sight of Hawke just now. Either way, he can’t stay here.

The Circle mages are gone, at least, but they’ve taken Anders’ straight back and decisiveness with them. All that’s left is a skinny mage, streaked with soot and blood, huddled in on himself atop a log. He flinches when Hawke sits down beside him. Hawke knows the feeling.

This. This is depressingly familiar. His lover, his love, hollow and tired and so, so angry. Is this it, the real truth of him? But then there’d been the fire in his voice, his eyes, all the right words coming to him for once - the tragic hero a hundred years too early for a safe and happy life. The way he deliberately sticks his cold nose into Hawke’s shoulder, the way he laughs so hard it crosses over into breathy little chokes, sometimes, if you tickle that spot just over his third rib, or if you make a particularly dreadful pun…

Maker take him, he feels guilty a the beat-dog look Anders gives him when he startles at the touch to his hand. It’s not even skin-on-skin - hardtack, an unappealing lump. “You should eat,” he says, soft. He’s not looking at Hawke. No, he’s looking at the little knapsack in his lap. The corners of his mouth are tugging down and Hawke knows what he’s thinking - that he shouldn’t have kept it, that the Circle mages will need all the help they can get and then some.

“So should you,” he manages, and all that gets him is a deeper frown. Even here, maybe especially here, Anders is so ready to put his own needs last in line. It’s a hell of a thing to break hardtack in half - they weren’t kidding with that name - and it’s Anders’ turn to startle when Hawke takes his hand, only half to press the food into it. Anders looks at him with damp eyes and that’s… If they start _that,_ it just won’t stop.

“The weather’s lovely. That’s something!” It’s only Merrill, but she gave him such a start - he dropped the thrice-damned hardtack. 

Anders is quick to snatch it back up. “Dirt gives it some texture,” and there’s a hint of a joke in there. It warms him more than it should.

“Hungry?” Hawke asks, and waves his dirt-free hardtack at Merrill. She wrinkles her nose at it, which is rich. He’s had her alleged scones before.

“Think we’ll be better off with some roots,” and Varric’s looking at him, at least. There’s sadness there, more than anger. How Hawke deserves his friends, he’ll never know. “That way at least the dirt’s supposed to be there.”

“Ooh, I did find some dandelions.” Merrill rummages around in her pockets and produces some limp-looking little white roots.

Varric, bless him, keeps a straight face. “Come on, Daisy. I don’t know about you, but I could sleep for a week.” He gives Hawke a knowing look, maybe a little fond beneath the exhaustion and the grief. “And don’t worry, mother hen. We’ll check in on you tomorrow.”

Merrill gives them a worried look, but lets herself be tugged along without further comment. That’s worrying in and of itself, but she’s been quieter lately. They all have, pressed and pushed and pushed and _pushed_. Something had to give.

It feels inevitable, somehow, that it’d come to this, or something like it. The money, the mansion, the relative peace - no matter what you win, over the long haul you never beat the house. 

The black cast of his thoughts must show on his face. “Come on,” Anders murmurs, gentle as ever even if he can’t - won’t, more like - hide his nerves. “There’s a relatively spider-free cave just over there.”

“You do know how to sweet talk,” and that slips out as easily as ever it did. Anders seems almost startled by that. It’s not like him to be so skittish. Hawke captures Anders’ hand, threads their fingers together. It was supposed to be grounding, but there's another sidelong look, is all. Even now, he’s determined to worry Hawke to death with a silence Hawke’s no longer sure he knows how to read. “I won’t be much use out here. You never did show me where the underground keeps the goodies.” He tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Well, he tried to try.

“There hasn’t been an underground, lo -…” A pause, and this, this he knows. After all this time, even after the day’s fireworks, and still. Still.

“I love you,” and that’s a bedrock truth. Anders’ fingers clench around his. “Yes, even now.”

“I don’t deserve…” and that’s a song and dance he hasn’t got the energy for, not right now.

“Well, you’re stuck with me. Better get used to it.”

He’s too old and too mean to blush, but he can feel his cheeks heat all the same when Anders raises their joined hands, brushes his lips across Hawke’s knuckles.

And there goes _that_ moment - the cave entrance is a good two feet to the left of the hillside he just walked straight into. “In my defense, you are _very_ distracting.”

Anders’ little half-smile is uncertain. Fair enough. Hawke can hardly keep up with his own moods, tonight, and he’s usually the steadier between them.

He’s never been grateful for the tedium of preparing camp for the night, but for now it’s welcome cover. He’s going to need to get ahold of himself if they’re to survive the next few days. They’re both too tired to sleep in shifts, mana levels scraping bottom. Not ideal, for the most wanted men in Thedas. This is a decent setup, at least. No clear sightlines from the outside, and it’s simple enough to brush the tall grass back upright a bit so at least the trail’s not glaringly obvious. It’s not much, not at all.

It’s as good as it’s going to get. He’s so tired he can feel himself shaking a little. He’ll be no use at all, not like this.

He makes his way back to the cave, and that’s another good argument for sleep - Anders has laid out a bedroll, none too big, and looks to be halfway toward sleep already.

It doesn’t take long to shed his filthy armor, much as he’s loathe to do it. Out here, exposed, with nothing more than his arms to protect them, and to lay them down feels…

Anders makes a grumpy noise and flips the covers open. “Get in.”

“Get over, and I will,” and there’s another little half -growl. 

“’S’not your side.” Hawke can’t help it - he glances back at the cave entrance. Anders’ eyes follow the movement. His face falls, and it’s almost enough to stop him, but…

“I won’t be able to sleep if you don’t,” he admits, and that doesn’t do much to chase that frown away. Still, Anders rolls to the other side of their makeshift bed, and even allows himself to be gathered into Hawke’s arms. “You’re not an easy man to keep safe.”

Anders snorts. “Funny. I’ve often had the same thought.” He shoves that cold nose of his into Hawke’s throat, startles a chuckle out of him. They’re damned lucky, the both of them, to be in one piece and in a position to bicker. The way Anders’ hands clench hard against him is proof enough that his thoughts are similar.

He presses a kiss against Anders’ temple. “Good thing you aren’t in it for the money,” and Anders chuckles against him. Hawke smoothes a thumb over the little stretch of exposed skin at his hip. “No money, no mansion, no title… Guess all I have to protect now is you,” and oh, _that_ could’ve gone better. His voice cracked. Something inside of him has cracked. There’s no stopping it now. “Sure you want me on the job?” He’s whispering, now, but still his damned voice shakes. “Done a terrible job with much better odds.”

Anders’ arms are tight around him, almost painful. “I have never been more certain of anything in my life.”

Maybe it’s the silence, maybe the haze of exhaustion and the feel of unreality. "When it happened, when I saw it...  Do you know, I was almost relived." Anders is stiff, now, rigid with tension against him. "I thought you were going to leave me," he whispers into the dark.

“I would never,” and there he is, fierce and beautiful. A flash of blue and that crackle of energy against his skin - it’s familiar, now, but there’s no getting used to it. He supposes that’s a truth, too, in its own way - the force of Anders’s feeling, if nothing else, and a reminder of what can never be.

“You’re here now,” he says, and feels the weight of Anders in his arms, the cadence of his breath. He tries to let that be enough.


End file.
